21 Comments

1. 

   zip on July 24, 2023 at 10:21 am

   Hello Pan

   Thanks for your update. Your site is actually ‘a digital alarm clock to mark the end of time ‘. Now add a ‘doomsday app’ every time you post and the picture is complete 🙂

   Very impressive film about the burning coal mines, child labor and the mine management. Those don’t need a doomsday app. That’s the Armageddon ‘here and now’. That puts “things in a useful perspective.

   Just got a call from my kids who were about to travel ‘all inclusive’ to Rhodes. That ‘all inclusive’ apparently also meant that they had to include the forest fires had just dawned on them. Many flights were cancelled and rebooked.

   They are not going to hear that until two days before departure next week. That keeps the suspense going. Interesting reports of hastily fleeing tourists (many Dutch) who had imagined it all slightly differently. So let’s put on REM loudly in the crowded sports halls and airports where they wait overheated for their return flight to their ‘chilly’ summer in Holland.

   They must be happy….but next year they will book again, because we are hardy and short of memory.

   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0GFRcFm-aY

   • 

     Panopticon on July 24, 2023 at 3:07 pm

     Zip, the pictures coming out of Rhodes are mind-boggling. I hope your kids manage to get away on holiday and that it goes safely. Corfu fires worsening and Crete on red alert now, I see.

2. 

   Pintada on July 24, 2023 at 2:13 pm

   OMG. I simply cannot let this slide without rebuttal.

   VOA – the ultimate US/NATO propaganda mouthpiece says that the evil Russia is trying to starve Africans! They expect us to believe that they are doing it because that madman Putin doesn’t want Russia to profit from shipping food and fertilizer.

   First, Russia has not been able to ship food or fertilizer at the former rate because while the agreement allowed them to do so, other sanctions made it very difficult for any ships carrying those products to get insurance. Putins popularity has been damaged because the average Russian sees the “deal” as yet another example of Putin going too soft on the west, and in the prosecution of the war.

   This is a translation of the speech given by Putin when he announced that the grain deal was over. Also, remember that this speech was given just a few days after the Kerch bridge was damaged in a terrorist attack. (Why is it a terrorist attack? 1. The only thing damaged was the civilian highway – the military uses the railroad which was not attacked. 2. The only people hurt were civilians – since (duh) it was a civilian target.)

   🇷🇺 President Putin on the grain deal:

   — The grain deal was concluded exactly a year ago, on July 22, 2022. We extended this deal again and again, showed miracles of endurance and patience;

   – Nobody [in the West] was going to fulfill the agreements, they just constantly demanded something from Russia. Just outright arrogance;

   – The authority was undermined, among other things, by the leadership of the UN secretariat, which acted as a guarantor of the grain deal. I believe that the UN staff sincerely sought to fulfill all the promises made by the West, but they could not achieve anything, they did practically nothing to ensure the normal operation of the deal;

   – The West did everything to derail the grain deal, spared no effort;

   — The withdrawal from the sanctions of Russian exports of grain and fertilizers to world markets has not been completed. Moreover, Russia is being hindered even from donating Russian fertilizers to the poorest countries;

   – Russia will replace Ukrainian grain in the food market both commercially and free of charge;

   — The continuation of the grain deal in its current form has lost all meaning. Starting from July 18, its implementation was completed;

   – Russia will consider the possibility of returning to the grain deal only if all the principles of Russia’s participation in this deal, without exception, are fully taken into account and implemented.

   “The United Nations says 64% of almost 33 million metric tons of Ukrainian grain exported under the deal went to low- and middle-income countries, …”

   No. That is a total pure lie. In fact, about 4% of the Ukrainian grain shipped since the deal went into effect went to Africa. Spain was the largest recipient. Those “low- and middle- income countries” include many in Europe and the far east that no reasonable person would consider poor.

   I cant let things like this slide – not because I am on Russias “side”. I correct the record because:
   1. I hate liars. Always have, always will.
   2. The propagandists that wrote the article are lying so that the war will continue, which will cause thousands more Ukrainians and Russians to die (or result in nuclear war).
   3. US/NATO has its reasons to want more Ukrainians to die, and are doing everything they can to make the carnage continue after provoking the war in the first place.

   I have never criticized your choice of publisher before. (I have pointed out that the source of the article is biased one way or another, but that is different.). Voice of America is a propaganda source. It exists for no other purpose. To put one of their articles in your otherwise brilliant feed is just … unfortunate.

   • 

     Panopticon on July 24, 2023 at 3:01 pm

     VoA probably wasn’t the best choice of article for this, as it will of course want to place responsibility at Russia’s door as eagerly as you wish to absolve it, Lou!

     Readers will have to trust that these threads are not intended to be geopolitically partisan. The failure of the grain deal – however the blame for that may be apportioned – is an important story for the global economy, so has to be included. I just know it sucks to see grain prices spiking and grain being held up or bombed in an increasingly hungry world:

     “Russian drones have attacked Ukrainian ports on the River Danube, destroying grain storage infrastructure, local officials say. A grain depot was also destroyed in the Black Sea port city of Odesa, which has come under almost nightly attack. Officials say more than 60,000 tonnes of grain have been destroyed in the past week.”

     https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-66289136

     • 

       Pintada on July 24, 2023 at 5:45 pm

       No, there will be no grain exports from the Ukraine for the foreseeable future. All NATO has to do is stop sending arms to the war.

3. 

   Pintada on July 24, 2023 at 2:21 pm

   I couldn’t find these statistics before, I stand corrected:

   “Ukrainian grain has played a direct role in easing a global food crisis with 725,200 tonnes, or 2.2 percent of the supplies, shipped through the corridor used by the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) as aid to countries such as Ethiopia, Somalia and Yemen.

   The International Rescue Committee calls the grain deal a “lifeline for the 79 countries and 349 million people on the front line of food insecurity”.

   However, as of Monday, almost 8 million tonnes of goods have been shipped to China, nearly 25 percent of the 32.9 million tonnes exported, according to the UN, while almost 44 percent of exports were shipped to high income countries.”

   I said 4% went to Africa, but it was really only 2.2%, sorry.
   https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/7/17/russia-ukraine-black-sea-grain-deal-all-you-need-to-know

   • 

     zip on July 24, 2023 at 3:34 pm

     Hello Pintada

     By the looks of it, you know a lot about Russia and the power relations within the Kremlin that led to this initially so called “special operation” against Ukraine. Which groups of industrialists and plutocrats within and around Kremlin benefit most from this war.
     For example, from Prigozhin the caterer of the Russian army that he earned billions from this operation. He just tells all this to ourselves in full color. But there are undoubtedly other big earners who I’m sure are at each other’s throats as well. At least a few are regularly thrown over the balcony.

     Same with the grain mafia in Russia, maybe you have data on that too, seems like an interesting addition to the picture we have about this war.

     Then I have another question. Do you have data on how much this war is actually costing the already weak Russian economy due to falling revenues It is without needing to be clairvoyant yet a completely unsustainable war with all those expensive mercenary armies diverse and a gigantic daily destruction of material and men.

     • 

       Pintada on July 24, 2023 at 5:34 pm

       “… you know a lot about Russia …”
       Hardly. Its just that I am willing to read the Russian cheerleaders and try to then sort out where they are puffing, and where they are relating facts. To “know a lot about Russia” one would need to be fluent in Russian and I am not that.

       “Which groups of industrialists and plutocrats within and around Kremlin benefit most from this war.”
       Again, one would need to look at the Russian stock market which is in Russian. No doubt those plutocrats exist. The difference between Russia and the US in that regard is that in the US those corporations (and the people behind them) run the foreign policy of the country. In Russia I see lots of articles (some of them undeniably partly true) that show that the current administration has been getting rid of oligarchs – especially those that were very rapacious during the ’90s.

       “… already weak Russian economy …”
       LOL – here I think you are spouting western dogma without looking at the facts. I will only refer you to Michael Hudson, Gilbert Doctorow, and Natalie Baldwin. Obviously, some of their writing (and in Natilie’s case, posting) is Russian cheerleading, however, it is undeniable that Russia enjoys a ~1% inflation rate, very low unemployment, and bountiful food and fuel supplies. Meanwhile, they are fighting all of NATO and winning*.

       *”winning” the war of attrition in this context means that the US just started sending cluster munitions (despite saying that their use was a war crime just a few months ago) because it is out of ordinary 155mm shells. Winning means that 10 times as many Ukrainian combatants die as Russian combatants, and that 10 times as much NATO material is wasted as Russian arms. If you wish to argue that the ratio is “only” 5:1 or as low as 3:1 fine. NATO propaganda would have one believe that the Russians can fire off 10 times as many

       “… yet a completely unsustainable war …”
       I have to shake my head a westerners that truly believe that if somehow NATO wins the war that it would be a good thing.

       What does a Russian defeat look like? Well, there are two distinct possibilities, one of which is absurd. Militarily, the NATO forces push the Russians back to Sevastopol in the south and Belgorod in the north, and then:
       1. The Russian government throws up its hands, turns over its 5000 nuclear warheads, jails the President (who currently has an 80% approval rating according to EU based pollsters), and turns over the entire country to US corporations, or;
       2. The Russian government does what it is required to do per Russian law under those conditions – use nuclear weapons against its enemies. (i.e. the US and Europe).

       You decide which outcome is better. Then ask yourself, “Why is the military industrial complex of the US making this happen?” If you answer as I do, “To make a lot of money.” then you will never look at the world in the same way. Do you want the blue pill, or do you want the red one?

       • 

         zip on July 24, 2023 at 7:28 pm

         Hello Pintada

         Thank you for your reply. I have been to the Soviet Union and Russia many times in my life. My Russian is lousy but my companion was married to a Russian from Petersburg and traded with the mafia in eggs. That was during the Yeltsin period.

         That was a learning period. The main lesson I learned from those frequent visits is that polarized ideological geopolitical considerations whether it is the Soviet Union or Russia under the plutocracy led by Putin/SFB hardly make any sense.

         Personally, I would rely mainly on the obvious statements made by Putin and Medvedev cs, about the Ukrainian people in particular, which otherwise leave nothing to be desired in terms of clarity. After that there has been a lot of geopolitical noise that adds little else in my view.

         But if you feel comfortable with extensive geopolitical reflections be may guest.

         Good luck with your reflections and if you have the chance book a trip to the Crimea, the Russian Riviera very beautiful and nice warm water in the Black Sea. The last time I was there was with my companion and his Russian girl. It was Ukrainian then but that didn’t matter.

         We had to stand ! in the Tupalev 124 but yes, it was also an old plane with seats with iron handles on top. It was not such a long flight.

         • 

           Panopticon on July 24, 2023 at 7:58 pm

           Zip, I was in the Soviet Union studying Russian in the summer of ’91. I left just before the August Coup.

           It was an extraordinary time with the the Ruble plummeting daily in value, so that each time I went to cash a $ traveller’s cheque I received a thicker wad of notes in return. Of course, there was virtually nothing to buy outside the ‘beriozka’, hard currency stores.

           There really was a sense that the country was collapsing. I recall a taxi driver asking for help getting his family out of the country, which of course as a foolish teenager I was in no position to do. I visited a Muscovite friend of my mother’s in her flat. She had so little to eat she was padding out her food with herbs and veg grown from window boxes.

           The tentacles of the West were just starting to reach in. McDonalds was new in Pushkin Square, which you had to queue for ages to get into, and there was a Pizza Hut around the corner… It is perhaps not a stretch to imagine that the current troubles can trace their roots back to the capitalist “shock therapy” imposed by the IMF et al in the 90’s and the looting of the country by the oligarchs that subsequently occurred. Now we have come full circle and McDonalds no longer exists in Russia, replaced by its knock off, ‘Tasty and That’s It’.

           My oldest friend married a Russian in Moscow and their only son is my Godson. I have much affection for the country. I am uncomfortable with any simplistic apportioning of blame for the events in Ukraine and prefer to focus instead on the human tragedy of it.

   • 

     Pintada on July 24, 2023 at 9:36 pm

     Zip said, “Personally, I would rely mainly on the obvious statements made by Putin and Medvedev cs, about the Ukrainian people in particular, which otherwise leave nothing to be desired in terms of clarity. After that there has been a lot of geopolitical noise that adds little else in my view.”

     Words of wisdom.

     Panopticon said, “I am uncomfortable with any simplistic apportioning of blame for the events in Ukraine and prefer to focus instead on the human tragedy of it.”

     Again, very wise. I shouldn’t spend as much time as I do on the subject because I cant change anything, and I will always be someone who has never been there, and can’t even speak the language. However one looks at the war and the fact that Ukraine and the people there are being destroyed. Watching closely, all I see is tragedy unfolding, day to day all I see is escalation after escalation which will lead to disaster/tragedy at best and armageddon at worst.

     Oh, well. Thanks very much, gentlemen, for letting me vent.

4. 

   Heather B on July 24, 2023 at 4:36 pm

   https://ceobs.org/solar-power-is-draining-yemens-groundwater/
   Meanwhile solar power will drain water wells. Great way to go down!

   • 

     Panopticon on July 24, 2023 at 6:00 pm

     Thanks, Heather! That’s Tainter in action…

5. 

   Pintada on July 24, 2023 at 5:42 pm

   Sorry, I got distracted mid-sentence:

   NATO propaganda would have one believe that the highly trained, highly motivated Russian veterans (mercenaries or not) can fire off 10 times as many artillery rounds, missiles, drones, and guided bombs as the NATO supplied forces and … what … miss??? While the gang pressed shopkeepers on the other side always hit their mark.

6. 

   TR on July 25, 2023 at 1:25 am

   There’s nothing more fun than watching the collapse of capitalism & industrial civilization with the exception of seeing unstoppable fires.
   All anyone had to do was rake the forest.

7. 

   Curt Kastens on July 25, 2023 at 9:38 am

   I am not an expert on Russia. I do not need to be an expert on Russia to understand who is responsible for this war in the Ukraine. Having been born and raised in the United States, and then studying Political Science and then serving in the US military. In addition I have followed US politcal and economic developement closely for decades, Therefore, from the point of view of my life time of experiences I recognized very early who the real threat to peace and justice was in the world. One does not need to know about the rest of the world to understand who the most evil nut cases are in the world. The leaders of the rest of the world might or might not be evil. But the leaders of the western world take the top prize because they had the luxury of disingagement. The United States could have very easily persued a policy of isolationism. But rather than do that they chose a policy of imperialism under the guise of bringing democracy and civilization to the rest of the world.

   Now the world has reached the end of its tether. This economicly evolutionary process leading to human extinction actually can not be blamed on US imperialism. It would have happened even if the US had engaged in a policy of isolationism. Westen leaders can not be blamed for the fact that the world’s trunda is now thawing and nothing is going to stop it from thawing out. The rate that it thaws out from here on out is going to keep accelerting. Even if this process is not enough to cause the destabilization of the frozen methane in the world’s continental shelves, the release of methane and CO2 from the trunda alone is a knock out blow for humanity.

   But in the mean time we humans can still try to hold the worst criminal elements on the planet responsible for their crimes. A logical deduction of this principle is that at this point the highest calling of humanity has to be to destroy NATO and imprison all of those criminals who have made its reign of terror on earth possible. Those who think that the war in the Ukraine is a morality about a powerful arrogant evil Russian leader (or system) attacking the small plucky <Ukraine obviously came in to the story during the middle of the movie.

   The west does not have any claim to moral surpiriority over any where else. The western nations are not democracies. They are plutacracies themselves that cloak themselves in a democratic mantel by having phoney elections. Why do I call them phoney? Because there must be other criteria met other than one person one vote for an election to be valid.
   One of the other important criteria is that the electorate must be well informed. But in just the US alone there are more than 40 million officially secret or top secret classified documents. Based upon this fact alone I think that one can easily conclude that the electorate in western nations are not well informed. That is even before we get in to the subject of how the corprate MSM spins reality to the benifit of the plutacracy.
   Another criteria that must be met before an election can be deemed as valid is that the elecorate must by and large be a body with widespread integrity. But western socities in no way shape or form nuture the developement of integrity in their populations. We have instead succumed to a war of one against all which is leading to a race to the end of human emphathy.
   By the mid 1990s I had given up hope that the United States could be reformed and I moved with my family to Germany. Sadly the events of 2022 have made me give up hope on Germany as well. Now I am to old to start over again.

   But I do recognize that the comming of the end of the world gives humanity one last chance to do soemthing nobel. We can destroy NATO and the US MIC that controls the institutions of NATO and the NATO member states for the most part as well. That the US could blow up the Nordstream pipeline and get away with it with out a wiff of blowback from european NATO countries very clearly demonstrates who is really in charge in Europe.

   Russia and China is really the only hope that there is for destroying NATO and the US MIC which would allow the world to bring its worst war criminals to justice. Their chances of success are small as that is a really big job. But I, and I might not be the only one, am willing to risk destroying the world through nuclear war to do it. Ohhh boo hooo that proves that I am a barbarian worse than Gengis Khan. Bull shit. The human spicies is already on very very thin ice. It is true that we do not know exactly how fast the trunda will unthaw. But that is not even the only natural event that is threating humanity with extinction.

   The question that people now have to face is do we want humanity to suffer a lingering extinction that might take a few decades or is an extinction that takes a few weeks maybe even as little as a few days the better alternative.

   A second question is do we want criminals to live a life of luxury longer than every one else?

   I say that we should all go out hand in hand together. No one should be left behind. That is a motto that I have heard once or twice.

8. 

   Curt Kastens on July 25, 2023 at 11:04 am

   I found this quite interesting.
   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1FfWXsZ2qBM

9. 

   Curt Kastens on July 25, 2023 at 12:55 pm

   Capitatlism clearly does not work. Those who think that capitalism works suffer from a delusion caused by conflating the benifits of burning hydrocarbons with the benifits of capitalism. There is a bit more to it than that. Socialism probably does not work either. Though to be fair humanity has not tried nearly as hard to make socialism work as it has tried to make capatilism work.
   So, if you take parts of two systems that do not work to try to create something that does work what are the chances of success?
   Maybe this introduction is not even related to what I am about to now relay, maybe it is related.

   I saw this interview yesterday of a person of Pakistani heritage who based upon his accent almost surely grew up in the United Kingdom. He was a jounalist. For many years he worked for very prominate western main stream media outlets. At some point his job took him to Hong Kong where he has now lived for many years.

   He stated that when he worked for a MSM institution he really believed what it was that he was reporting. But then while he was reporting on the pro democracy protests in Hong Kong he noticed some discrepencies, or lets say some Red Flags as a manner of speaking. They were language related issues. One was that a document was circulated by the protesters that claimed to be a Chinese document translated in to English. But he could clearly conclude that this claim was laughable. It was clearly an English language docuement that had never been translated from Chinese. Of course I can not personally verify whether or not he made the correct conclusion in this case. Then there was a second incident of similar nature.
   Up to this point he was not only reporting on these protests he felt as if he was part of it. He was sending money to organizations that were coordinating the protests. But, so he claims, these two incidents got him to start questioning his take on what it was that he was observing. At some point he reached the conclusion that these protest were actually being coordinated by the CIA and or MI6.
   Of course it is also possible that his story is made up. He has been living in Hong Kong and decided to accept a bribe from the Chinese to spread this story.
   Once upon a time I read a book about a US Army member that defected to East Germany. The most important thing that i took away from this book is why East Germany failed to be able to meet the demands of East German consumers as well as West Germany. It was not at all about which system wsa more efficient or dynamic. It was all about access to quality energy sources. West Germany had access to huge amounts of high quality coal right in their own territory. East Germany had access to much infirior brown coal. Not only that the west had access to Saudi Arabian oil. East Germany did not. 80% of east Germans think that East Germany was an economic failure. But I bet very few of them really understand the context of that failure.

   Now a little story about myself. I grew up in an all white version of America. A sububan landscape of about 20,000 souls. In the 6th grade the first African American student entered our school as a first grader. Everyone in the whole school went to the first grade classrooms to get a look at her.

   Until I moved to Maryland I did not believe stories of the continued mistreatment of African Americans in the USA. I had never seen it for myself and I could not believe that Americans could act in a racist manner. Ok wait I do recall a few exceptions. But I was under the impression that it was a very tiny white minority that was still racist.

   But once I moved to Maryland it did not take me long to see many examples in which I was treated much differently that African Americans in the same place, for example in Hotels, Hospitals, and stores. Furthermore, if it were not for my level of education I might not have even noticed it because I would not have been trained to look for differences in treatment.

   Going along with this is the value to even give eyewitness testomony in a court of law. I have heard more than one lawyer say that eye witness testomoney is the worst kind of evidence that there is. Therefore maybe what I just said should all be discounted. As it nothing more than a case of confirmation bias.

   Yes I am aware of confirmation bias. Sadly I think that being aware of it sueless because the implication of confirmation bias is that I should not draw any conclusions because my conclusion is inevitably based upon cherry picked evidence.

   • 

     Panopticon on July 25, 2023 at 1:13 pm

     “Socialism probably does not work either. Though to be fair humanity has not tried nearly as hard to make socialism work as it has tried to make capitalism work.”

     Behaviours that we might call egalitarian or socialist or even selfless arise organically when people or groups of people have the “right” state of consciousness, ie have achieved a certain level of spiritual maturity. Socialism seems to work less well when imposed externally as an ideology.

10. 

    Curt Kastens on July 25, 2023 at 3:49 pm

    Outside of some hard sciences all claims to expertise is self referential. I claim to have reached the level of being an expert in the humnaities because I claim that the worst enemy of the American people (or the Russian or Chinese, or African, or Iranian, or Indian, or Saudi peoples) is not the Russians nor the Chinese government but the US MIC which for decades has been waging war against the people of the entire planet.
    Of course I recognize that there are 340 other million people living in the USA of which probably 280 million were born there and of those 280 million 140 million are at least as well formally educated as I am. Yet very few of those 140 million will publically admit to have reached the same conclusion. Therefore being born and raised in America and getting a BA in politcal science alone really does not make me the expert on economic, politcal, social and military affairs that I claim to be.
    But when I look outside of the United States and Europe I can easily find huge numbers of like minded people.
    That should make it obvious to any alien passing by the earth that someone is being duped. Am I a dupe of Putin and Khameni. Or are the people of the west for the most part dupes of the US/UK military industrial complex.
    It is also impossible to tell who really believes this narrative that the west is the defender of civilization and who is just acting as a Parrot to be able to make a living in a cruel world.

    ( I am not a convert to Islam. I find many branches of Islam mysogonsitic. I do not belong to any religion, unless one counts Unitarian Universalism as a religion. But I do not think that it can qualify as a religion as it has no core beliefs. It is a social club of open minded people that just happens to meet on Sundays.)

    (Yes I am aware that Putin and Russia just enacted a law that bans sex change operations in Russia. The thing is other eastern european nations are just as homopobic as Russia is. I do not deem it my job to judge Putin’s leadership or Russia’s policies as I do not live there nor speak the language. It is hard enough to figure out what is going on in ones own country with out worrying about what is going on in another country. That is the job of independent thinkers in those countries. But because I have had a lot of expertise about what is going on in the US I can pass judgement and condemn the US and Ukraine in their war against Russians, and wish for a Russian Victory, which is unlikely, but means the Russians reoccuping Germany and France this next time around as well.)

    (OK Russian demographics would make such an event highly unlikely, as Russia is to NATO what the Ukraine is to Russia. But the comming NTHE will not stop me from having one dream, a dream that I share with many form Slovakia and maybe Hungary as well. I saw a poll that showed, if it can be believed, that Slovakia is one country in the EU in which a majority of the population favors a Russian victory. But I wonder if that may also really be the case in Hungary and Greece.

11. 

    Curt Kastens on July 25, 2023 at 6:50 pm

    It is one thing to know something. It is quite a different thing to have the skills to teach it to someone else.

    I wonder if anyone who trys to follow what is going on In the Ukriane has ever seen this youtube channel produced by a former US Marine Major.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pKFiJ37Uwi8